EXCLUSIVE: MELBOURNE appears to have escaped draft penalties but faces a fine of $500,000 as the AFL investigation into tanking sparked by Brock McLean moved on Friday into the final stages of resolution.

The move to punish those involved in the strategy of 2009 marks the first time in the game's history that the AFL has acted in this fashion to stamp out potential tampering with match results

Fairfax Media understands that Chris Connolly, the former football operations boss who in 2009 allegedly threatened staff with their jobs should the team win more than four games that season, will prove the only current Melbourne official suspended as a result of the six-month investigation.

Dean Bailey, the senior coach in 2009, faces a short suspension from coaching of three months but even that penalty could involve some weeks suspended pending any future breach.

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Melbourne chief executive Cameron Schwab has escaped any individual penalty. Schwab and Connolly last month were asked to show why they should not be charged on the two counts of bringing the game into disrepute and tampering with the draft.

Melbourne has continued to deny it deliberately lost games of football in 2009 and engaged former Federal Court judge Ray Finkelstein to lead its defence. The club has privately vowed to fight any charges in court but could now accept its fate following weeks of negotiations with the AFL's acting football boss Gillon McLachlan.

While the Demons and Bailey were expected to learn details of the charges against them on Friday, McLachlan refused to comment on his findings nor reveal whether the club, Connolly and Bailey would face the AFL Commission.

The football operations boss has the power to determine sanctions without a commission hearing. The proposed sanctions were expected to be made public early next week.

While Schwab managed to escape charges, the weight of evidence against Connolly was sufficient to ban him from working in football for a season. It remains uncertain whether that penalty will also involve a suspended component as the AFL allowed disgraced Adelaide CEO Stephen Trigg, who was banned from football for a year but will only serve six months.

At any rate Connolly was moved away from the football department at Melbourne when the club was restructured at the end of 2011. The Demons have strongly resisted Connolly emerging as the only current serving club official being singled out as a scapegoat following the affair.

However a number of witness have confirmed that Connolly spoke of the importance of sticking to the club resolve to gain a priority draft, which would have been lost had the Demons won more than four games.

While Bailey has fallen short of stating he deliberately coached his team to lose, the view of the investigation is that he proved a more co-operative witness than Connolly, who repeatedly denied his involvement in any orchestrated campaign and claimed he was the victim of the savage internal divisions that previously existed at the club.

Bailey initially faced charges of draft tampering and bringing the game into disrepute but was also charged with not coaching to his utmost in 2009. His punishment has been the subject of forensic legal manoeuvring in recent weeks.

Bailey was initially interviewed about tanking claims after he was sacked in 2011 and stated in his final press conference: "I had no hesitation at all in the first two years in ensuring the club was well placed for draft picks. I was asked to do the best thing by the Melbourne Football Club and I did it. I put players in different positions."

The Demons won only four matches that season, with successive defeats to Sydney in round 17 and to Richmond in round 18 strongly focused upon in the AFL investigation, which provided 800 pages of evidence.

While Fairfax Media could not confirm the exact nature of the findings against Melbourne, the move to punish those involved in the strategy of 2009 marks the first time in the game's history that the AFL has acted in this fashion to stamp out potential tampering with match results.

AFL boss Andrew Demetriou, who repeatedly opposed the view that Melbourne was manipulating match results back in 2009, later stated that any coach found to have deliberately lost a game of football would never work in the game again.

While McLean could provide no clear proof of tanking when confronted by the AFL investigators, he stated on Fox Footy in July last year when asked if the Demons had tanked: "Definitely, and I think you would have to be blind Freddy to not figure that one out."

120 comments

Ridiculous.. try telling 22 players to go out and not try their best..

All teams at the foot of the table throw players around in different positions.

Commenter

wild willy

Date and time

February 15, 2013, 2:45PM

Another confused Melbourne supporter. The players aren't in the gun, the coaches who toyed with absurd positional changes are.

And while swinging a forward flanker to a back flank to see how they go is reasonable, putting Paul Johnson on Nathan Brown defies any form of logic.

A fine is simply too lenient. Melbourne "played" for draft concessions; removing the club's right to participate in the first round of next year's draft is the only language it will understand.

But whatever the penalty, it's good to finally have clear the one thing we all knew: the Melbourne Football Club cheats.

Commenter

Glenn of Blackburn

Date and time

February 15, 2013, 3:24PM

I agree wild willy. Cheating is institutionalised in the footy. You have to have good reason to change - and no good reasons exist. Tanking (cheating), drug taking by players and coaches (cheating) and salary cap breaking (sort of cheating) are endemic. There is clearly no appetite for making real changes. The footy is great just the way it is. We love it and we will continue to love it.

Commenter

Andy

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

February 15, 2013, 3:34PM

Any Melbourne supporter who thinks their club (as opposed to individual players) wasn't tanking is living in Noddy land (although I admit they're pretty crook even when the coaches are trying to get the team to win). However, they were one of many - the majority of clubs did the same thing for years - it was standard procedure amongst the lowly clubs as far as I could see but the AFL liked to pretend it wasn't happening. In that sense, Melbourne is unlucky. However, if the report is accurate, I can't really follow the logic of fining them rather than imposing draft penalties. If what they gained by tanking were advantages in the draft, surely that's where the penalty should be imposed. However, expecting logic and credibility from the AFL seems to be unrealistic.

Commenter

SteveR

Location

McKinnon

Date and time

February 15, 2013, 4:38PM

Yeah right Wanker Willy. First off only a very few teams spend much time at the foot of the table. And those very few thrash around without being able to rise up the ladder. Hiring cheap management does that so tanking is a no brainer. Looks like the AFL are going to tank over Melb now. So what slap on the wrist with a lettuce leaf are Essendon going to get? Oh wait! They owned up to "something" when they were forced to so I guess they get a good behavior bond. "Too big to fail" as the scum of Wall street would say.

Commenter

Watcher465

Date and time

February 15, 2013, 7:13PM

@Andy What the hell does "sort of cheating" even mean? Of course it is cheating if you go beyond the rules for all teams by any means. For example, Melbourne Storm keeping two sets of contracts to breach salary caps when other teams were not in order to get a competitive advantage is cheating...not sort of cheating

Commenter

Hater

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 15, 2013, 8:51PM

Not all clubs publicly dress down the coaches when they win and tell them that their dying president is ashamed of them. If this was a club like Collingwood you would be spitting froth and demanding Eddie's resignation along with the return of the 2010 Premiership - and you know it. Be thankful you got off so lightly.

Commenter

Realist

Date and time

February 16, 2013, 5:46AM

Hater,

Thank you for pointing out that my ironic comment could be read literally.

Commenter

Andy

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

February 16, 2013, 8:34AM

If this story is correct, the bigger issue is how a journalist was able to get access to the information. That should trigger an overhaul of the AFL administration and the sacking of the person/people responsible for the leak. Bring it on!

Commenter

Alan

Date and time

February 15, 2013, 3:00PM

That would be rather ironic - sacked for leaking a story but no heads to roll for years of sleeping at the wheel.